Developing Character Analysis Writing Skills Requires Thorough Reading literary works with special attention to what features the author reveals in the character’s character through dialogue, description and plot. A literary analyst writes about the role each character plays in the work under review. Most main character is called a protagonist, whereas a character who appears as a villain in a conflict with the main character is called an antagonist. Great writers create complex characters, so analysis must focus on these complexities. Here are some points to keep in mind when writing your own analysis.

Steps

Beginning of work

Choose your character. For a character analysis assignment in school, you may be asked to describe a literary character. But if you can choose, make sure that you tend to consider only those characters who play dynamic roles in the story. Dull and boring characters (one-dimensional, someone only "good" or only "bad", who do not consider any complex motivations) are not suitable choices for analysis.

• For example, if you are reading Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, you might choose Huck or Jim the runaway slave, since they are dynamic characters who display a wide range of emotions, and who often act unpredictably and move the story forward with their actions.
• It would be less effective to choose a Duke or a King, the rogues that Huck and Jim meet in Arkansas, and since they play rather minor roles in the story, they do not show a wide range of emotions and are most likely just stereotypical individuals (the story needs comic relief). "detour" and the opportunity for Huck and Jim to separate so that Huck can enjoy that shameless moment when he makes his mischievous statement "Well, then I'll go to hell" and the Duke and the King play the role).

1. Read the story, paying attention Special attention on your character. Even if you have already read this work before, you need to read it again, because... Now that you are faced with a specific task, you will be able to notice new features. Pay attention to any circumstances in which your character appears and think through answers to the following questions:

   • How does the author describe them?
     • With Huck Finn, for example, you might think that the author portrays Huck as a backwards boy from the backwoods, even though he clearly struggles with serious social issues such as slavery and religion.
   • What kind of relationships exist between your character and other characters?
     • Think about how Huck treats the runaway slave Jim at the beginning and end of the novel? Think about Huck's attitude towards his drunken and abusive father? What shape did this give to his personality?
   • How do your character's actions move the novel's plot forward?
     • Huck is clearly the main character, so it's clear that his actions are important. But, specifically, what is special about Huck’s actions? How he comes to decisions that are different from the decisions that other people might make in a similar situation. You could discuss Huck's decision to rescue Jim from the people who intended to return Jim to his owner because he decided that slavery was an injustice, even though this idea went against everything his society had taught him.
   • What does your hero have to struggle with?
     • Consider how Huck grows and learns as the novel progresses. At first, there is a fear that he will be caught cheating (for example, falsifying his own death), but later he avoids the scams he observes (as when he tries to throw off the deceivers - the Duke and the King).

2. Take notes. As you read the work a second time, write down the entire important information, which gives an idea of ​​the main character as a person with a deeper character. Make notes in the margins and underline important statements as you continue reading this piece.

   • You can also keep a notepad ready as you read, this will help you stay on top of your thoughts about the character as you continue reading.

3. Choose your main idea. Collect all your notes about the chosen character and try to formulate the main idea that is reflected in them. This will serve as your thesis statement for your character analysis. Consider all the actions, their motivations and the outcomes of the main plot line. Perhaps your thesis idea will help reveal how in character young man reflects the stress of growing up and inherent in people virtues. Perhaps your character's character shows readers that even people who make terrible mistakes are capable of and deserve redemption.

   • In a situation Huck Finn, for example, you might emphasize something to do with the hypocrisy of civilized society, since it is essentially a novel about a boy who was raised to approve of the enslavement of blacks, but who decides, through his experience with Jim on the river, treat him as a person and as a friend, and not as a slave. Likewise, Huck's own father captures and "enslaves" Huck, from which Huck ultimately flees and mirrors Jim's own desire for freedom. Society considers Huck's flight morally justified and fair, while Jim's flight in the eyes of the townspeople is terrible crime. This contradiction is the main problem of the novel.

4. Make sketches. Once you've decided on your main idea, create a quick outline of all your supporting materials. Mark the places in the text where your character exhibits the personality traits you included in your thesis statement. Include additional complicating facts in the sketch that will deepen the character's inner feelings.

   Writing a Character Analysis

   1. Write an introduction. Based on your thesis idea, prepare an introductory paragraph about the character you have chosen and the role he or she plays in this literary work.

      Describe appearance your character. Describe what your character looks like and explain what aspects of their appearance indicate their personality. Try to quote or paraphrase text taken directly from the book.

      • Think about Huck's torn clothes and what that fact says about his character. Discuss how Huck dresses up as a little girl to gather news in town and how this changed appearance influences your analysis of Huck's personality.

   2. Discuss your character's origins. If information is available, include facts about the character's personal history (some of these details may be implied or inferred). People's life history inevitably influences their personality and their personality development, so it's important to discuss your character's development history if possible. Where and when was the character born and raised? What kind of education did your character receive? How does a character's past experiences influence what he does and says?

      • Discuss Huck's relationship with his father, the Widow Douglas, and Miss Watson, who accepted him. How do these characters influence Huck's development? The contrast between Huck's alcoholic father and the conservative ladies who care for him later is an interesting continuum. social behavior(continuum, continuous object) to analyze and ponder where Huck's own beliefs and actions fall on this continuum.

   3. Discuss the features of language use. Analyze the language used by the hero throughout the story. Does the character always use the same language, or does his or her choice of language change throughout the story from introduction to conclusion?

      • It must be admitted that Huck's address is too vulgar for a boy, and he often does not speak in a way that the Widow Douglas would approve of. He tries hard to obey her and behave accordingly in church, but he often makes mistakes and draws attention to himself by his actions and words, like a man whose level of civilization is far below the level he claims to be and which the Widow Douglas would approve of.

   4. Description of the character's personality. Does the character act under the influence of emotion or reason? What values ​​does he demonstrate through his words and lifestyle? Does the character have goals or ambitions? Give a specific answer and quote or paraphrase relevant text from the book.

      • Huck Finn tries to obey the rules of society, but at the end of the day he acts based on his emotions. He decides to save Jim from being returned to his master, although this is against the law, as he believes that Jim does not deserve to be treated as a slave. Huck makes this decision on his own, in direct opposition to the values ​​that society has taught him.

   5. Analyze the character's relationships with other people. Think about how your character interacts with other people in the novel. Is the character a leader, or does he tend to follow others? Does the character have close friends and family? Provide examples from the text as you go through your analysis.

   6. Describe how the character changes or grows throughout the story. Most of the main characters will experience conflict throughout the entire time period described in the novel. Some conflict is external (introduced by forces beyond anyone's control), while other conflict is internal (the character's personal experiences and his actions related to them). Does the character get better or worse in the end? In great works of literature, memorable characters usually change or grow.

      • Huck's external conflicts are based on the events of the journey down the river - the physical struggle with the surrounding conditions, his misadventures along the way, various scandals, and so on. His internal conflict reaches its climax when Huck decides to help Jim free himself. At this decisive moment, Huck follows his heart rather than the demands of society.

Character

A character is a type of artistic image, a subject of action. This term in a certain context can be replaced by the concepts of “character” or “literary hero”, but in a strict theoretical sense these are different terms. This interchangeability is explained by the fact that translated from Latin (persona– mask) the word “character” means an actor playing a role in a mask expressing a certain type of character, therefore literally a character. Therefore, the term “character” should be attributed to the formal components of the text. It is acceptable to use this term when analyzing the system of images-characters and compositional features. A literary character is a bearer of a constructive role in a work, autonomous and personified in the imagination (this can be a person, but also an animal, plant, landscape, utensil, fantastic creature, concept), involved in the action (hero) or only occasionally indicated (for example, personality important for characterizing the environment). Taking into account the role of literary characters in the integrity of the work, we can divide them into main (foreground), secondary (secondary) and episodic, and from the point of view of their participation in the development of events - into incoming (active) and passive.

The concept of “character” is applicable to epic and dramatic works, and to a lesser extent to lyrical works, although lyric theorists as a type of literature allow the use of this term. For example, G. Pospelov calls one of the types of lyrics character-based: “Characters... are individuals depicted in epic and dramatic works. They always embody certain characteristics of social existence and therefore have certain individual traits, receive proper names and create, through their actions, taking place in certain conditions of place and time, the plots of such works." lyrical works the hero does not shape the plot; unlike epic and dramatic stories, the personality does not act directly in the work, but he is presented as artistic image.

L. Ya. Ginzburg noted that the concepts of “lyrical subject” and “ lyrical hero"as special forms of embodiment of the poet's personality.

Hero

The term "literary hero" means complete image a person – in the totality of his appearance, way of thinking, behavior and mental world; The term “character,” which is similar in meaning, if taken in a narrow rather than broad sense, denotes the internal psychological profile of a person, his natural properties, nature.

The heroes of works can be not only people, but also animals, fantastic images and even objects. All of them, in any case, are artistic images that reflect reality in the refracted consciousness of the author.

The hero is one of central characters in a literary work, active in incidents that are fundamental to the development of the action, focusing the reader’s attention on itself.

The main character is a literary character who is most involved in the action, his fate is the focus of attention of the author and the reader.

Literary hero– the image of a person in literature. The concepts “character” and “character” are often used in conjunction with a literary hero. Sometimes they are distinguished: literary heroes are called characters(characters) drawn more multifaceted and more significant for the idea of ​​the work. Sometimes the concept of “literary hero” refers only to characters close to the author’s ideal of a person (the so-called positive hero) or embodying the heroic principle (for example, heroes of epics, epics, and tragedies). It should be noted, however, that in literary criticism these concepts, along with the concepts of “character”, “type” and “image”, are interchangeable.

From the point of view of the figurative structure, a literary hero combines character as the internal content of the character, and his behavior and actions as something external. Character allows us to consider the actions of the person depicted as natural, going back to some vital reason; it is the content and law (motivation) of behavior.

A character in the usual sense is the same as a literary hero. In literary criticism, the term “character” is used in a narrower, but not always the same sense. Most often, a character is understood as an active person. But here, too, two interpretations differ: a person represented and characterized in action, and not in descriptions: then the concept of “character” most closely corresponds to the heroes of drama, images-roles. Any actor, subject of action in general. In this interpretation, the character is opposed only to the “pure” subject of experience appearing in the lyrics, which is why the term “character” is not applicable to the so-called lyrical hero: one cannot say “lyrical character.”

A character is sometimes understood only as a minor person. In this understanding, the term “character” correlates with the narrowed meaning of the term “hero” - the central person or one of the main persons of the work. On this basis, the expression " cameo character" (and not "episodic hero").

When reading works of fiction, we first of all pay attention to its main characters. All of them have clear characteristics in literary theory. We will find out which ones exactly from this article.

The word "image" in Russian literary criticism has several meanings.

Firstly, all art is figurative, i.e. reality is recreated by the artist with the help of images. In the image, the general, generic is revealed through the individual, transformed. In this sense, we can say: the image of the Motherland, the image of nature, the image of man, i.e. depiction in artistic form of the Motherland, nature, man.

Secondly, at the linguistic level of the work, the image is identical to the concept of “trope”. In this case, we are talking about metaphor, comparison, hyperbole, etc., i.e. about figurative means of poetic language. If you imagine the figurative structure of the work, then the first figurative layer is the image-details. From them grows a second figurative layer, consisting of actions, events, moods, i.e. everything that unfolds dynamically in time. The third layer is images of characters and circumstances, heroes who find themselves in conflicts. From the images of the third layer a holistic image of fate and the world is formed, i.e. concept of being.

The image of a hero is an artistic generalization of human properties, character traits in the individual appearance of the hero. A hero can inspire admiration or repel, commit actions, act. An image is an artistic category. You cannot, for example, say: “I despise the image of Molchalin.” You can despise the silent type, but his image is like artistic phenomenon evokes admiration for Griboyedov's skill. Sometimes, instead of the concept of “image,” the concept of “character” is used.

The concept of "character" is broader than the concept of "image". A character is any character in a work. You cannot say “lyrical character” instead of “lyrical hero”. A lyrical hero is an image of a hero in a lyrical work, whose experiences, feelings, thoughts reflect the author’s worldview. This is an artistic “double” of the author-poet, which has its own inner world, your destiny. The lyrical hero is not an autobiographical image, although he reflects personal experiences, attitudes towards different aspects of the life of the author himself. The lyrical hero embodies spiritual world the author and his contemporaries. The lyrical hero of A. S. Pushkin is a harmonious, spiritually rich personality who believes in love, friendship, and is optimistic in his outlook on life. Another lyrical hero of M. Yu. Lermontov. This is the “son of suffering”, disappointed in reality, lonely, romantically yearning for will and freedom and tragically not finding them. Characters, like heroes, can be major or minor, but when applied to episodic characters, only the term “character” is used.

Often a character is understood as a minor person who does not influence events, while a literary hero is a multi-faceted character who is important for expressing the idea of ​​a work. You can come across the judgment that a hero is only that character who carries positive principles and is an exponent of the author’s ideal (Chatsky, Tatyana Larina, Bolkonsky, Katerina). The statement that negative satirical characters (Plyushkin, Judushka Golovlev, Kabanikha) are not heroes is incorrect. Here two concepts are mixed - the hero as a character and the heroic as a way of human behavior.

The satirical hero of a work is a character, a character against whom the edge of satire is directed. Naturally, such a hero is unlikely to be capable of heroic deeds, i.e. is not a hero in the behavioral sense of the word. IN creative process creating images of heroes, some of them embody the most characteristic features of a given time and environment. Such an image is called a literary type.

A literary type is a generalized image of human individuality, the most possible, characteristic of a certain social environment at a certain time. The literary type reflects the laws of social development. It combines two sides: individual (single) and general. Typical (and this is important to remember) does not mean average; a type always concentrates in itself everything that is most striking, characteristic of an entire group of people - social, national, age, etc. Types have been created in the literature goodies(Tatiana Larina, Chatsky), “extra people” (Eugene Onegin, Pechorin), Turgenev girls. In aesthetically perfect works, each type is a character.

Character is human individuality, consisting of certain spiritual, moral, mental traits. This is the unity of an emotional reaction, temperament, will and a type of behavior determined by the socio-historical situation and time (era). Character consists of diverse traits and qualities, but this is not a random combination of them. Each character has a main, dominant feature, which gives living unity to the entire variety of qualities and properties. The character in a work can be static, already formed and manifested in actions. But most often character is presented in change, in development, in evolution. A pattern emerges in the development of character. The logic of character development sometimes conflicts with the author’s intention (even A.S. Pushkin complained to Pushchin that Tatyana got married without his “knowledge”). Obeying this logic, the author cannot always turn the hero’s fate the way he wants.

historical character models

Literature is a writer’s way of understanding the world and himself, associated with specific feature think in artistic images. Being fundamentally anthropocentric, creative consciousness gravitates towards understanding and depicting a person. Of course, his image in literature is a product of the general concept of personality and the world developed by the cultural and historical era. But its embodiment in the text is associated not only with the individual author’s views, predilections, psychology, but also with the model of typification - a method of processing life material into artistic and aesthetic material (this method is also historical). In other words, a character, even having an autobiographical or prototypical basis, will not be equal to its prototype, but will be “constructed” according to a certain model.

“Different eras,” according to A.N. Andreeva, “they understood the relationship between art and reality differently, and had different principles for the aesthetic modeling of personality.” Traditionally historical “forms of character formation”(in relation to artistic methods) are classified as follows:

· mask characterin archaic and folklore literature. Historically the first model. The mask is “a stable literary role and even a stable plot function<…>symbol of a certain property" ;

· type -a method of artistic recreation of a person, in which his individual diversity is replaced by “the embodiment... of one trait, one repeating property” . This model was formed in classicism and was used until mid-19th V.

Classicism developed the “moral and social type” (L. Ginzburg) - such a construction of a character when his personality is reduced to one generalized moral and social quality (Harpagon’s hypertrophied stinginess is a moral quality; the vanity of Molière’s Bourgeois is not so much a moral as a social property). Thus, with moral and social typification, one of the two designated principles dominates;

· character– a character model, which involves, firstly, the reproduction of “the diversity and interconnection of his traits”, and secondly, individualization.

This image structure was formed by realists of the 19th century. In their works, individual complexity of character was created with the help of determination (heterogeneous conditioning: environment, everyday life, physiology, etc.).

There are synthetic varieties of character:

– character-type (term by S.E. Shatalov). Character is based on typification. At the same time, the “basic type” in character is not blurred to the point of amorphism (it always shines through the character), but it is sharply complicated by individual properties. Therefore, it is sometimes called the “socio-psychological type” (V. Gudonene): for example, the characters of I.A. Goncharova, I.S. Turgenev;

– character-personality. An individualized and multifaceted character is “spiritually involved in existence (as a whole and as a close reality) and at the same time organically included in interpersonal communication, internally independent of stereotypes and institutions environment". In the construction of such an image, “the social will play a subordinate role,” and the object of psychological research will be “the microworld of man<…>in its unity and relationship with objective existence." These are the characters of L.N. Tolstoy in the most complex psychological development and philosophical aspiration to “connect everything with everything.”

It seems that literary experience XX century forces us to supplement the proposed classification:

· "out of character" personality– a model of an unrealistic character who has lost his characterological integrity. Character is perceived as a social mask that covers the spiritual and psychological complexity of a person. This model emphasizes the humanistic basis and orientation towards ontology (non-close reality).

We find the rationale for “out of character” in G. Hesse’s novel “Steppenwolf”: “Any “I”, even the most naive, is not unity, but a complex world, a starry sky, a chaos of forms, stages and states, heredity and possibilities<…>The body of every person is whole, the soul is not. Poetry<…>traditionally<…>operates with imaginary, imaginary united characters”; Antiquity, “always starting from the visible body, actually invented the fiction of the “I”, the fiction of the face. In poetry Ancient India this concept does not exist at all, the heroes of the Indian epic are not faces, but crowds of faces, rows of personifications.” Thus, Hesse postulates the need to return to archaic mythopoetic character formation, to stratify the whole image into components. In his novels, the “out-of-character” structuring is based on Jungian psycho-mythology. The principle of character splitting into doubles is also used in the mythical novel of the 20th century. (A.P. Platonov), in “I will call myself Gantenbein” by M. Frisch.

· "out of character image"– a type of artistic representation of a person with a torn consciousness. Its varieties:

Image " inner man", revealed in its introversion, through the flow of states (in the literature of the "stream of consciousness", "neo-novel", anti-drama);

- “kaleidoscope of masks” (postmodern novel).

The tendency to complicate the character structure is parallel to the line of psychologization in world literature.

The idea of ​​a character with a pronounced personality is traditionally associated with the discoveries of psychologism in the 19th century. – “dialectics of the soul” by L. Tolstoy and “polyphonism” by F. Dostoevsky. Therefore it is important to determine essence, personality structure in literature. It is artistically revealed in its verbalized and psychological form.

From point of view modern psychologists, in the concept " personality» 2 sides are opposed to each other:

· personality – a product of social development (social, professional, gender, race, ethnic, religious, territorial) – an object of external influences;

· personality is an actively acting, evaluating subject, aware of his place in the world, evaluating.

Psychological structure of personality

Socially determined features

Genetically determined features

Installation personalities (Reflects individually refracted social, group consciousness).

Personal experience

Individual mental processes

Biologically determined features

Forms worldview and motivation

Shape the flow of inner life

From these positions, the indicator of personality becomes moral actions that are of significant importance to himself and those around him.

Linguists in the structure linguistic personality There are 5 hypostases: 1) I am physical, 2) I am social, 3) I am verbal and mental, 4) I am intellectual (opinions, beliefs, knowledge), 5) I am psychological (goals, attitudes, motivations determined by feelings and desires).

In literature the second half of the 19th century V. an idea of ​​personality is emerging as a complex of three spheres: body, psyche and consciousness (biological, mental, spiritual). With intellectual dominance, the power of the psychophysical principle was recognized.

This personality structure was, first of all, reflected in the linguistic consciousness (of the author and his characters). In the study of Russian psychopoetics literature XVIII– XIX centuries E.G. Etkind demonstrated a multi-level personality, verbalized in words. About Pechorin’s five speech masks and “five interpenetrating layers” of Karenina’s inner world, about “tangles of thoughts”, “double thoughts”, “layers of consciousness and subconsciousness” of Dostoevsky’s characters as signs new structure character and psychologism of the 19th century. – E.G.’s analysis convincingly demonstrates Etkind.

According to A.N. Andreev, realistic psychological prose embodied the multidimensionality of man in the “confusion” of thoughts, feelings, and actions. The nature of this “confusion” is “multimotivation”, “dependence<…>behavior from numerous motives and motivations, which are not always clear to him [the character - O.Z.]." L. Tolstoy presented this personality structure in its entirety: “The famous Tolstoy “dialectics of the soul”, “fluidity of consciousness” is nothing more than the crossing of motives from different spheres<… >contradictions between motive and motive, motive and action, inadequacy of behavior and desires, inclinations.”

A person’s spirituality is determined by the extent of his freedom and responsibility, personal position (in relation to himself and others). From the moment when a personality becomes the subject not only of his behavior, but also of his inner world, he rises to a fundamentally new level development. The expansion of thinking towards oneself goes in three directions:

· self-knowledge (transition from syncretism “I – ​​the world” to their conscious differentiation);

· self-attitude (emotional assessment in the “I – ​​others” system);

· self-regulation (conscious formation and control; “I – ​​I”).

Addresses the dynamic, complex personality on the path of self-awareness literature XIX– XX centuries The new qualities of her artistic psychologism make it possible to capture the dynamics of the most intense mental, emotional and sensory processes. Behind this “psychology” is the goal - to pose and solve spiritual and moral problems, to go through the particular to the general (human and existential).

Questions and tasks

1. Explain the usefulness of studying historical character models in literature.
2. What is the character structure and its variations in twentieth-century literature? What causes character model modifications?
3. Read the study by E.G. Etkind on the psychopoetics of Russian literature (see the part “On five interpenetrating layers” in the appendix). Correlate the personality structures proposed by linguists and psychologists with the personality structure of L.N. Tolstoy.

Character(from French personage- personality, face) - character work of art. As a rule, the character takes an active part in the development of the action, but the author or one of the literary heroes can also talk about him. There are main and secondary characters. In some works the main attention is paid to one character (for example, in Lermontov’s “Hero of Our Time”), in others the writer’s attention is drawn to whole line characters (“War and Peace” by L. Tolstoy).

Character(from Greek character - trait, peculiarity) - an image of a person in a literary work that combines the general, repeating and individual, unique. The author's view of the world and man is revealed through character. The principles and techniques for creating character differ depending on tragic, satirical and other ways of depicting life, from literary kind works and genre.

It is necessary to distinguish literary character from character in life. When creating a character, a writer can also reflect the traits of a real, historical person. But he inevitably uses fiction, “invents” the prototype, even if his hero is a historical figure.

“Character” and “character” are not identical concepts. Literature is focused on creating characters, which often cause controversy and are perceived ambiguously by critics and readers. Therefore, in the same character one can see different tempers(the image of Bazarov from Turgenev’s novel “Fathers and Sons”). In addition, in the system of images of a literary work, there are, as a rule, much more characters than characters. Not every character is a character; some characters only serve a plot role. Typically not in character minor characters works.

Type- a generalized artistic image, the most possible, characteristic of a certain social environment. A type is a character that contains a social generalization. For example, the type of “superfluous man” in Russian literature, with all its diversity (Chatsky, Onegin, Pechorin, Oblomov) had common features: education, dissatisfaction real life, the desire for justice, the inability to realize oneself in society, the ability to have strong feelings, etc. Every time gives birth to its own types of heroes. For changing " extra person“The type of “new people” has arrived. This, for example, is the nihilist Bazarov.

Lyrical hero - the image of the poet, the lyrical “I”. The inner world of the lyrical hero is revealed not through actions and events, but through specific state of mind, through the experience of a certain life situation. A lyric poem is a specific and individual manifestation of the character of the lyrical hero. The image of the lyrical hero is revealed most fully throughout the poet’s work. Thus, in some of Pushkin’s lyrical works (“In the depths of the Siberian ores...”, “Anchar”, “Prophet”, “Desire for Glory”, “I Love You...” and others) various states of the lyrical hero are expressed, but, taken together, they give us a fairly holistic picture of him.

The image of the lyrical hero should not be identified with the personality of the poet, just as the experiences of the lyrical hero should not be perceived as the thoughts and feelings of the author himself. The image of a lyrical hero is created by the poet in the same way as an artistic image in works of other genres, through the selection of life material, typification, and artistic invention.

Image system- a set of artistic images of a literary work. The system of images includes not only images of characters, but also images-details, images-symbols, etc.

Artistic means of creating images (speech characteristics of the hero: dialogue, monologue - author's description, portrait, internal monologue, etc.)

When creating images, the following are used artistic media:

1. Speech characteristics hero, which includes monologue and dialogue. Monologue- speech of a character addressed to another character or to the reader without expectation of a response. Monologues are especially characteristic of dramatic works(one of the most famous is Chatsky’s monologue from Griboyedov’s “Woe from Wit”). Dialogue- verbal communication between the characters, which, in turn, serves as a way to characterize the character and motivate the development of the plot.

In some works, the character himself talks about himself in the form of an oral story, notes, diaries, letters. This technique, for example, is used in Tolstoy’s story “After the Ball.”

2. Mutual characteristics, when one character talks about another (mutual characterizations of officials in Gogol’s “The Inspector General”).

3. Author's description, when the author talks about his hero. So, reading “War and Peace”, we always feel the author’s attitude towards people and events. It is revealed in the portraits of the characters, and in direct assessments and characteristics, and in the author’s intonation.

Portrait- depiction in a literary work of the hero’s appearance: facial features, figures, clothes, posture, facial expressions, gestures, demeanor. Often found in literature psychological picture, in which, through the hero’s appearance, the writer seeks to reveal his inner world (portrait of Pechorin in Lermontov’s “Hero of Our Time”).

Scenery - depiction of pictures of nature in a literary work. The landscape also often served as a means of characterizing the hero and his mood at a certain moment (for example, the landscape as perceived by Grinev in “ The captain's daughter"Pushkin before visiting the robber “military council” is fundamentally different from the landscape after this visit, when it became clear that the Pugachevites would not execute Grinev).

“Eternal” themes, motifs and images in fiction

"Eternal" themes- these are the topics that always, at all times, interest humanity. They contain universally significant and moral content, but each era puts its own meaning into their interpretation. “Eternal” themes include such as the theme of death, the theme of love and others.

Motive- the minimum significant component of the narrative. Also called a motif that is constantly repeated in different works artistic plot. It can be contained in many works of one writer or in several writers. "Eternal" motives- such motifs that have been passing from one work to another for centuries, since they contain a universal, universally significant meaning (the motive of the meeting, the motive of the path, the motive of loneliness and others).

There are also “eternal” images in literature. "Eternal" images- characters from literary works that go beyond their scope. They are found in other works of writers different countries and eras. Their names have become common nouns, often used as epithets, indicating some qualities of a person or literary character. These are, for example, Faust, Don Juan, Hamlet, Don Quixote. All these characters have lost their pure literary significance and acquired universal humanity. They were created a very long time ago, but appear again and again in the works of writers, because they express something of universal significance that is important for all people.

Examples of Unified State Examination tasks on topics 1.5.-1.8.

Part 1

The answer to tasks B1-B12 is a word or combination of words. Write your answer without spaces, punctuation, or quotation marks.

IN 1. What is the name of the method artistic construction, which consists in depicting clearly implausible, incredible objects and phenomena?

AT 2. Name the state in which, at the end of the 19th century, classicism was formed as artistic direction?

VZ. What is the basis of the creative method of sentimentalism?

AT 4. Which concept is very important for understanding the essence of romanticism as artistic method?

AT 5. What is the name of creative method, formed in the 19th century and presupposing an artistic comprehension of the complex interaction of a person with his environment - near (everyday, family, class) and distant (time, era, cultural tradition, people, universe)?

AT 6. Name the first and most significant of modernist movements that originated in Russia.

AT 8. What term denotes a group of genres that have similar structural features?

AT 9. Which literary genera You know?

BIO. What is the name of the lyrical genre, which is a poem imbued with a mood of sadness and sadness?

AT 11. What is the name of the type of drama, a work based on an irreconcilable life conflict leading to the suffering and death of the heroes?

AT 12. What term refers to the main idea of ​​a work of art?

Give a coherent answer to the question in 5-10 sentences.

C1. What's happened fiction?

C2. Describe the main artistic means of creating images.

Detail. Symbol. Subtext

Detail- this is an expressive detail with the help of which an artistic image is created. The detail helps to present the picture, object or character depicted by the author in a unique individuality. It can reproduce features of appearance, details of clothing, furnishings, experiences or actions.

In Chekhov's story “Chameleon,” an expressive detail is, for example, the overcoat of the police warden Ochumelov. Throughout the story, the hero takes off his overcoat several times, then puts it on again, then wraps himself in it. This detail highlights how the police officer's behavior changes depending on the circumstances.

Symbol- an artistic image that is revealed through comparison with other concepts. The symbol says that there is some other meaning that does not coincide with the image itself, is not identical to it.

A symbol, like metaphor and allegory, forms figurative meanings based on the connection between objects and phenomena. But at the same time, a symbol differs sharply from metaphor and allegory, because it has not one, but an unlimited number of meanings. For example, “spring” can symbolize (denote) the beginning of life, the season, the onset of a new stage in life, the awakening of love. What distinguishes a symbol from a metaphor is that a metaphor is usually associated with a specific object, while a symbol seeks to designate the eternal and elusive. Metaphor deepens the understanding of ovality, and the symbol takes us beyond its limits, striving to comprehend the “higher” reality. Thus, the Beautiful Lady in Blok’s lyrics is not only a lover, but also the Soul of the World, Eternal Femininity

Each element artistic system can be a symbol - metaphor, simile, landscape, artistic detail, title and literary character. For example, biblical characters such as Cain and Judas have become symbols of betrayal. The title of Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm” is symbolic: the thunderstorm has become a symbol of despair and purification.

Subtext - not expressly expressed hidden meaning text. The subtext can be detected by the reader based on the correlation of a given fragment of text with the fragments preceding it, both within the framework of this text and beyond it - in previously created texts. Various hints and reminiscences in the text are all manifestations of subtext.

Thus, in L. Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina, Anna’s first and last appearance is connected with the railway and the train: at the beginning of the novel she hears about a man crushed by a train, at the end she throws herself under the train. The death of the railway watchman seems to the heroine herself a bad omen, and as the text of the novel moves forward, it begins to come true.